The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to an integrated monitoring and control system for storage system and storage area network (SAN).
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
One type of information handling system includes a storage area networks (SAN) that couples a computing device to a storage system. Users of such storage/SAN systems are conventionally required to configured and monitor each of the separate components (e.g., switch devices in the SAN, storage devices in the storage system, etc.) using multiple vendor tools and users interfaces. The need to configure and monitor storage/SAN systems in this manner raises a number of issues, as actions such as zoning, end-to-end performance monitoring and troubleshooting, and individual SAN device environment monitoring and recovery may be required based on other actions performed on other devices in the storage/SAN system. In a single monolithic chassis-based system that contains both modular switches and modular storage, information needed for such configuration and monitoring can be exchanged via a chassis management controller subsystem using internal communication mechanisms. However in more typical distributed storage and SAN systems where the components are physically located in different places, there is no equivalent to the chassis management controller subsystems and internal communication mechanisms of a single monolithic chassis-based system. Rather, the devices in such a system are connected via external communication mechanisms such as Ethernet or Fibre Channel, and are typically provided by different vendors, thus allowing only high level access to the internal performance and platform device environment state.
For example, the configuration of a Logical Unit Number (LUN) on a target storage array may require making an initiator (e.g., a storage adapter, a Host Bus Adapter (HBA), or a Converged Network Adapter (CNA)) aware of the LUN as well as adding related zoning information (e.g., World Wide Names (WWNs) in the common zone) to the switch device(s) in the SAN. In another example, when analyzing end-to-end performance of the storage/SAN system, the state of the link on each end may need to be known in order to determine information such as Buffer-to-Buffer (BB) credit starvation or slow drainer devices. Conventional systems such as SAN level monitoring tools may allow monitoring at the application level, but at storage level (e.g., the Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID) controller level) and high level SAN points, there is no ability to perform such end-to-end monitoring. In yet another example, when trying to determine the effect of an environmental change in various components in the storage/SAN system (e.g., temperature, optical cable status, noise, electric and magnetic field (EMF), etc.) on the end-to-end traffic behavior, correlating conditions and events in the end-to-end components to that traffic behavior is difficult, and detailed feedback and control for reacting to adverse conditions is not available.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide for improved storage/SAN system monitoring and control.